


Rock Salt, Iron Rounds, and Devil's Traps in Pen

by yesterday4



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterday4/pseuds/yesterday4
Summary: It's Dean's first time being "man of the house", and he's totally taking it like the little soldier he is. Or not.





	

From where Dean’s sitting at the kitchen table, he can hear Sammy’s crayon making waxy scrapes onto the paper in his colouring book. It’s a slow scrape—Sammy always colours really slow to stay inside the lines—and his brother’s tongue is stuck out in concentration. It’s all really _annoying_ because Dean is supposed to be concentrating too, and Dad gave him a _pen_. No mistakes, no errors. One time only or _bam_! You’re dead!

Dean’s picture is a bunch of tiny little words that he can’t pronounce-- _Hebraic_ words, Dad says—and they spiral over and over and over, inside smaller and smaller. Then there is a big star thing with seven points, all interconnected and _really_ tricky to fit inside his stupid coil of weird words, and Dean is the first to admit that his doesn’t look exactly like Dad’s copy, but it isn’t too bad either. His star is not very even, and he wanted to use a ruler, but Dad had said no. If it happened for real in real life, there wouldn’t be time for rulers. 

Dad doesn’t think Dean will ever really have to draw this, but he tells him that maybe someday it’ll help. Maybe Dad’ll be having to kill something dead, and the cool thing is that maybe Dean will get to draw it on the ceiling, and not get in trouble like that time Sammy’d drawn stupid trees on the wall of their last motel with a big green highlighter he’d found somewhere. Dean’s not sure he can reach all the way to the ceiling but Dad says they’ll cross that bridge when they get there. 

“Whatcha drawing?” Sammy asks, putting down his crayon and leaning all in Dean’s space. Sammy’s colouring in He-Man, and he’s managed to get crayon wax all over his fingers.

“Devil’s Trap,” Dean says truthfully, because Sam is little and doesn’t get it anyway. But, just to be safe… “You know, for school.”

School makes Sammy like to ask questions, so Dean pointedly shoves his colouring book back at him and says, "You missed He-Man's arm, doofus." In the other room, Dad turns on the TV. Dean watches the tip of his pen as he carefully outlines his kind of crooked star and starts the inside.

**

“Spirits,” Dean begins, voice booming and steady because that’s how Dad likes to think information should sound, “are what is left behind when people die and leave things not done. Sometimes they are mean and angry.” Deep breath, and—

“How can you detect ’em?” 

Dad is sitting at the kitchen chair, tilted onto its back legs even though he always tells Dean not to sit like that, you little fool, unless you want your head cracked open. He’s drinking a beer and peering into the living room at Sammy, who is allowed to watch whatever he wants on TV so that he won’t hear what Dean is saying. It sounds like Full House from where Dean is standing, and that’s too bad because Uncle Jesse—

“Well, kiddo?” 

_Kiddo_ is a nice word, but Dad’s tone is impatient. He’s not like Mrs. Adams who doesn’t get mad when you don’t know the answer. Dean’s had two weeks now to learn about dead things, and he’d sure as heck better know them.

“Ecto… ecto…” Ecto-something, and uh oh… And then on an excited rush, “Ectoplasm! Lots of energy and electricity, and then no energy and electricity. The air goes cold.”

The laugh track in the background of Full House cracks right up, and Dean secretly kind of wants Uncle Jesse’s hair. 

Dad smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle, and continues with, “How do you kill the sons of bitches?”

Dean knows the answer to this one because it’s a trick question, and he'd fallen for it last time. Straightening his posture, he recites, “I don’t kill them. I use rock salt or iron rounds and then I take Sammy and go down to Mrs. Elison’s room and use the phone to get you, or Pastor Jim, or Uncle Bobby. Then _you_ do salting and burning.” 

Dad nods, and Dean wishes he’d call the whole thing off and say _smart enough_! But Dean hasn’t done poltergeists or demonic possession or shapeshifters—the scariest ones, by far, but Dean’s not really afraid of anything, so _he_ never says they’re scary out loud—yet, and Dad’s only just mentioned wendigos last week, so that’s something new to have to recite. Even though Dad says they only live in bushes and Dean’s never been camping and absolutely positively does not see the point in knowing anything about them at all. 

“Poltergeists,” Dad says, a little bit predictably.

Dean swallows a sigh and doesn’t rock on his heels even though standing at attention is making him feel all stiff, and Dad’s still watching Sammy watch TV anyway. School is pretty boring and everything, but at least Dean can sit there.

“Poltergeists,” Dean begins, just wearily enough to attract one sharp stare from Dad, “live in places where bad things have happened.”

**

Dad makes Sammy help with the salt lines, which makes Dean snicker under his breath, since Dad likes to salt line right after supper when it’s still light, and that’s when Sammy likes to go to his room and play with his little green army men, which are actually Dean’s, but there’s no reason to go there. They have a little handheld vacuum cleaner that doesn’t work very well, and Dad makes Sammy crawl on his knees and vacuum up all of the old salt while Dean washes their supper dishes. 

Sammy makes a face, but Dad stands over him, an unmovable scary shadow. Dean thinks that Dad should make it into a game, because Sammy really likes games and can be tricked into almost anything that sounds fun, but this kind of thing isn’t a game to Dad. Sammy doesn’t get this anymore than he gets the monsters—he’s only four and hasn’t been to any other kid’s house yet to know that salt lines are kind of totally weird. 

Vacuuming is the worst part, and that’s why Sammy has to do it. “Dean does lots around here, kiddo,” Dad tells him, leaning against the wall, “About time you got off your ass and helped.” Dean makes the new lines later, two finger widths wide, but vacuuming is worse because the salt goes down into the carpet. Dean’s sorry Sammy has to do it, but he doesn’t miss doing it himself. 

“Nice and straight,” Dad says approvingly when Dean is done, and then he lets him go play army men with Sammy.

**

Dad goes to Mississippi over Easter break—“M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I!” Sammy yells, shrill from the other room, even though he’s too little to spell and just memorized it off of TV—and leaves Dean alone in the motel with Sammy. 

“Gotta be the man of the house in my absence,” Dad tells Dean as he shoves weapons into a duffel bag, checking this and checking that. “You know the rules.”

Dean knows the rules all right, and repeats them to Dad’s satisfaction: don’t let anyone in, don’t go out unless absolutely necessary, don’t answer the phone unless Dad makes it do the code ring. Don’t go anywhere with anyone, even if that someone looks like Dad (and here, Dean shudders), unless Dad tells them the code word. Don’t open the blinds. Don’t hit your little brother. Brush your teeth, because Dad can tell the difference when he comes home.

After Dad is done packing, he pulls Dean up onto the bed beside him and puts an arm around him in a not quite hug. Dean has a not so nice feeling in the pit of his stomach because he’s never been alone without someone big, not ever, and he’s really really afraid of shapeshifters, even more so than the demon Dad’s after, because shapeshifters look like anyone and how do you know? Dad might come home and be a shapeshifter, and even though they have a code word, maybe the shapeshifter will know it, and then get Sammy, and then get him, and it all makes Dean want to throw up. 

“I’ll be back on Monday,” Dad says, and he sounds funny. Maybe a little sorry. His hand is heavy on Dean’s arm. “Got your gun?”

“Yessir,” Dean says. It’s Dad’s very own sawed off, and it’s in the bedroom, up on the shelf where Sammy can’t reach it and accidentally blow his idiot brains out. 

“Got any questions?”

Can shapeshifters read minds and know code words? What if a poltergeist has been hiding when Dad is here, and comes out when he's gone? What if he has to use the phone at Mrs. Elison’s and then she is actually a demon and eats Sammy? What if—

“No, sir,” Dean tells him, because that’s the right answer.

Dad hugs him then, tight and quick, and leaves him sitting on the bed while he does the same with Sammy. Sammy is only four and therefore a total baby; his lip starts to tremble until Dad tells him to stop it, but his voice is nice and not angry. He makes Dean lock the door behind him, and then Dean breaks the rules a bit and peeps out the curtain so he can see Dad go to the Impala. Sammy pushes him over and peers out too.

But Dad just goes to the Impala’s trunk, fishes around, and comes back. Dean makes him say the code word to show how good he is, and then Dad comes in again, binoculars in hand. They’re his new ones, special military ones with night vision and a really really far away range. Dean secretly really loves them, but Dad doesn’t let him touch them, not unless he’s there and Sammy isn’t, because Sammy is kind of clumsy and not much of a little soldier yet. 

“Just for the weekend,” Dad says, and he hands Dean the binoculars with a wink. 

**

Dean’s got two G. I. Joes that Dad got him for his birthday last year. One is missing an arm but that’s okay, because Dean pretends it got blown off by a rocket launcher in ’Nam, even though he’s not really sure they had rocket launchers there. But they should have anyway. Or sometimes he pretends that the G. I. Joe got shot, and then it got rotten and smelled so bad that he went crazy, and then rats ate it. They’re both fun, and he makes rocket launcher noises under his breath.

Sammy always plays the one armed G. I. Joe, so when Dean sets up with Dad’s binoculars, Sammy stuffs his own arm inside of his shirt and giggles like crazy. The motel is pretty crappy, but Sammy figures out that you can launch yourself off the loveseat and land on the couch like a paratrooper about fifty five percent of the time if you angle probably. Dean misses first, which is kind of embarrassing, and hits the floor hard, narrowly missing the table.

“I’ve been hit!” he yells dramatically.

Sammy pauses, half bent and ready to launch himself at the couch. Eyes his brother quizzically. “Do you have one arm now too?”

“Shut up,” Dean says, and rolls under the table. He can reach the binoculars from here, and aims them towards the kitchen. “Enemy approaching at two o’clock!”

Sam lets out a truly girly scream of horror, abandons his dive at the couch, and squats down behind the loveseat instead. Crawls forward on his elbows, two elbows because he's a cheater, and wiggles in beside Dean. 

“Got your grenades, Private Winchester?” Dean asks.

Sammy pats at his belt with the arm that’s supposed to be missing. “Yes, sir!”

Dean makes sure to put the binoculars carefully out of the way before shouting, “Attack!” in his best General voice. They get out from under the table with something less than dignity, and then the brothers Winchester are storming the kitchen, screaming high pitched battle cries at the tops of their lungs.

**

It’s not until Sammy is asleep in bed that things start to get a little scary for Dean. He checks the locks on the door a couple of times, and then crawls along the perimeter of every single room, checking the salt lines for any irregularities. He notices that Sammy had done a bad job with vacuuming near the bathroom, and tries to rub yesterday’s salt far enough into the carpet that Dad won’t notice it if he comes home early. Changes into his pajamas and has a Coke, even though Dad says nothing like that after six, while watching TV.

Problem is, the motel room makes funny noises. Someone is yelling in the room nearest theirs, and yelling really loud too. The parking lot seems alive, at least to Dean’s ears, and the heavy sound of Sammy’s breathing is more eerie than comforting. He checks the locks again and then goes to bed himself, sawed off laid out across his stomach. Rubs at it, trying to find comfort in its heavy weight.

_Rock salt and iron rounds di… di… di… get rid of ghosts for a little while. Rock salt and iron rounds get rid of ghosts for a little while. Rock salt and iron rounds get rid of…_

The yelling in the next room shuts up abruptly, and then there are other noises, things banging against the wall. Dean wrenches his eyes shut tight and tries not to wonder if someone’s getting murdered over there, separated from him only by a few sheets of crappy drywall. Soon, there are different noises, a weirder type of yelling, and it scares Dean so badly that he whimpers a little into his pillow; clenches the shotgun so hard his fingers go white. 

It's a bad time to remember that the lady at the front desk always looks at him funny when he walks by her, and Dean wonders now, in the darkness of his bedroom, if she’s demonically possessed, if her eyes would be black if he would have whipped around really fast one time when she’s staring. He knows she’s working tonight because he’d seen her car out the window, and it suddenly occurs to him that she might be a shapeshifter waiting for their dad to leave. His heart is pounding hard and his palms feel sweaty.

Trying to calm himself down—big baby, just like little Sammy—Dean gets up and goes to the bathroom. Sits on the chair near the window and holds onto Dad’s binoculars with one hand and his shot gun with the other. Dean’s aim isn’t too great, and he’s suddenly afraid he won’t even be able to hit anything bad. Suddenly remembers that he doesn’t even know what ecto-whatever means, so how can he check to see if it’s left behind from any ghosts? Forehead against the window, Dean scans the parking lot through a slit in the curtains.

_Mississippi, M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I spells Mississippi._

Carefully, he lifts up the binoculars and presses them against the glass. It makes his vision blurry but he swallows, determined. Adjusts the lenses and tries really _hard_ to see far enough in the distance to catch a glimpse of gleaming black Impala, and Dad.

But there’s nothing, he realizes, but the big scary parking lot and a ton of stupid cars he doesn’t recognize.

“Rock salt and iron rounds get rid of spirits,” Dean mumbles beneath his breath, drawing his knees up to his chest, and preparing for a long night of keeping watch. "Silver kills things too. Rock salt and iron rounds..."

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of writing this, I'm not sure if there had been a canon mention of the first time Dean watched Sam. I've chosen to make Dean roughly eight. 
> 
> Supernatural does not belong to me!


End file.
